Culinary Arts

David Douglas High School

David Douglas High School

Portland, Oregon

The new Culinary Arts classroom at David Douglas High School was remodeled from an existing art classroom that was being relocated. The new classroom was funded by grant money, and allows the school to add four Culinary classes and four Food Science classes per semester to their program, as well as gives students the opportunity to have more hands on experience by lowered class sizes. The rectilinear shape of the room was predetermined and provided some programmatic challenges to the layout of the room. It was determined that peninsulas along two adjacent walls, alternating as cooking peninsulas and wash peninsulas would accommodate the most amount of students. The peninsula layout was sized to accommodate up to 40 students, though the intention is not to need to. The peninsulas on the exteriors of the room accommodates a flexible gathering area with a teacher station for instruction and demonstration. The brighter finishes were intended to keep the room bright, but also encourage a clean environment by not masking or hiding what should be cleaned. The teacher insures that every end of period is a thorough cleaning session.

Fun fact: The cabinetry along the wall of windows hides and existing full-length heat convector, which created a fun design challenge. A chase runs behind the cabinet to allow for air circulation which vents on the top of the counters through a modulated full-length grill. All of these pieces, including the countertop and base cabinet units, were designed to be modular and removable for cleaning and maintenance of the convector.